1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network system for a plantation or fish farm, wherein a user without materials and facilities for cultivating plants and breeding animals instructs through a network a cultivator and breeder.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known that a network farm shows photographs of its harvest on its internet home page, thereby delivering the harvest to customers.
Further, the network farm often gathers by using an internet home page customer members who wish to have virtual experiences in the farm. For example, the network farm lent an apple tree to a customer and delivers harvested apples to the customer with a report of how the apples are grown.
However, the customers are not fully satisfied merely by receiving the harvest. Particularly, eager customers wish to know that their plants are being grown in accordance with their instructions. On the other hand, when the farm could not obtain any harvest for the customer, the farm may deliver some harvest, feeling pity for the customer. In this way, the conventional network farm system has a disadvantage that the customers can not learn something from failures on harvest.
Recently, the governmental research center of the Japanese ministry of agriculture and fishery together with the federal organization of science and industry of Australia reportedly succeeded in generating a virtual rice plant which grows in a computer which shows by computer graphics a growing process from germination to coming into ears. For example, the way the leaves come out differs, if some of the growing conditions for the virtual rice plant are changed. Computer simulation is useful for development of new species. Further, the virtual rice plant ends its life for only a minute, although a real rice plant takes about five months for a harvest. Therefore, immediately after starting a software, seeds germinate, the leaves come out, old leaves fall, and at last ears come out. The way how the leaves and the timing when the ears come are changed, according to the conditions such as temperature or day light time. Therefore, the local conditions such as the East-North district in Main Island of Japan, or Kyushu Island in southern Japan can be simulated. A virtual irrigated rice field has been already prepared for cropping simultaneously several kinds of the virtual rice plants. The virtual irrigated rice field may be used for researching lengths of leaves and shapes of the stems which can grow against bad daylight conditions (morning edition of The Japan Economy: Heisei 12, May 8, 2000.
The virtual plant or plantation may be applied to offer experiences of trial and error for delivering a real harvest to a customer connected with a network.
An object of the present invention is to provide a network farm for growing plants, fishes or animals, wherein a user connected with a network instructs a farmer during growing processes for obtaining a real harvest.
The network farming method for customers who instruct growing conditions and receive harvest from a network farm system including a management terminal, a farm connected with said management terminal and a plurality of customer terminals, which comprises the steps of: deciding growing conditions in said customer terminals; transmitting said growing conditions from said customer terminals to said management terminal; executing growing in said farm connected with said management terminal; reporting growing processes and harvest from said farm; and delivering said harvest from said farm to said customer terminal.
According to the present invention, the customer can have hardships or difficulties in growing plants and animals and can get his/her own harvest.
Further, according to the present invention, the farming experiences are realistic, because the growing processes of plants and animals are monitored at any time.